240 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / 8 halftones, 1 chart
History / United States - 19th Century | Literary Criticism / American | Literary Criticism / Historical Events
Two centuries ago, native New Yorker Washington Irving exploded onto the literary scene of Europe with the publication of his breakout collection of stories, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. Published in England and America in 1819–1820, and universally praised for its inventive characters and soul-searching qualities, including the immortal tales “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the volume enjoyed remarkable transatlantic success, allowing Irving to become the first of his nation to support himself as a professional author.
In this distinctive collection, historians and literary scholars come together to reassess Irving’s imaginative world and complex cultural legacy. Alternately a satirist and a nostalgia merchant, Irving was ever absorbed in reconstituting a lost past, which the volume dubs “Rip Van Winkle’s Republic.” The assembled scholars explore issues of Anglo-American culture, the power of imagery, race, and the treatment of time and history in Irving’s vast body of literature, as well as his status as a bibliophile, an antiquarian, and a prominent figure in an age of literary celebrity.
Edited by acclaimed historians Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Rip Van Winkle’s Republic marks a rediscovery of this marvelous author of social satire and fabled tales of the past.
Andrew Burstein is the Charles P. Manship Professor of History at Louisiana State University and the author of The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving, along with many other books on early US history.
Nancy Isenberg is the T. Harry Williams Professor of History at Louisiana State University and the author of the New York Times bestseller White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Her other books include Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr.
“The preeminent American writer of his day, Washington Irving remained popular into the early twentieth century before changing tastes and contexts diminished his appeal. This volume, marking the bicentennial of Irving’s The Sketch Book, helps explain why his writings mattered in the early republic, how they found their way into other media, and why they remain relevant. Those interested in Irving will find much to enjoy, and the quality of the writing makes the book enjoyable for specialists and nonspecialists alike.”—Scott E. Casper, president of the American Antiquarian Society and author of Constructing American Lives: Biography and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America
“This interdisciplinary collection of ten essays, initially intended for a conference scuttled by COVID, examines Washington Irving (1783–1859) as both producer and product of American historical consciousness. . . . what emerges is an intriguing account of how Irving established himself as the first internationally recognized US literary celebrity, someone whose “fan base rivaled Lord Byron’s.”—Choice
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